Sunday, July 10, 2011

Little Fockers (Chris Weitz, 2010) -- F

Disintegrating even the slightest semblance of good taste, cinematic sophistication, and, without question, figures resembling actual human beings, Little Fockers might just be the most excruciatingly worthless film ever made. Where to begin explaining its endless barrage of travesties? Essentially, the third film in this unfunny franchise (okay, the first one at least coasted on the affability of its leads) involves...well, mainly a bunch of gobbledygook pratfalls, anal insertion gags, erectile dysfunction corkers, and, my favorite, children projectile vomiting. Every single scene in the film falls horribly, catastrophically flat almost instantaneously. Newcomers Jessica Alba, Harvey Keitel, and Laura Dern generally make complete fools of themselves. To see Keitel and De Niro, united probably for the last time on-screen, suffer and mug their way through such horrid muck is akin to cinephilic food poisoning - rarely has such an esteemed cast, who've done strong, often miraculous work with other filmmakers, been so egregiously useless. Moreover, the entire film has been written into some indistinguishable black-hole, as none of these characters could ever be mistaken for living, breathing, people. Neither does director Chris Weitz turn the proceedings into outlandish farce, a move which would have, at a bare minimum, given a tonal consistency to the nonsense. Rather, he directs with a moron's eye, relying on excess and strained, desperate gags to keep the incoherent narrative chugging along. Furthermore, there's never even one iota of thought given to thematic formation about family values or aging. Just seemingly endless, woefully unfunny jab after jab. Rarely will "fun" ever be this intellectually imprisoning.